


Chains

by ChucklesDaHorse



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Hinted Redemption, I believe she can change, If they just did a FREAKING TV SHOW IT COULD HAPPEN, Just with less cursing, Prison Visit, past drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7772284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChucklesDaHorse/pseuds/ChucklesDaHorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA the beginning of a redemption arc that's never going to happen</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chains

He didn’t want to see her again. He really, really, _really_ didn’t want to see her again.

After the arrest, he thought it was over. He served his time (now much shorter, thankfully), and once he was back on the streets, he was ready to move on. With no more political responsibilities, he had no reason to stay in Zootopia, which was fine with him; there was too much bad blood here, too many memories that would haunt him if he let them back in. So he moved out to the countryside, more than prepared to settle down for the remainder of his life. He began to fill his days with reading, gardening, and the occasional try at fixing up anything broken around his new home (feats that often left him sore but satisfied). And he was… content. Not happy, but at ease, at least.

Then she got parole.

It was his own fault he found out. He chose to keep receiving the _Gazette_ , even though he had no interest in the news anymore. The only reason he still paid for it was for the crosswords, or the book recommendations, or the not-quite-as-funny-as-they-though-they-were funny pages. The only time he ever read anything about the goings-on of the city he once owned was when he had to unfold the paper to separate the parts he liked from the rest, and the front page would momentarily assault his eyes with its enormous melodramatic headlines before he refolded it and tossed it in his recycling bin. And boy, did the imminent early release of ex-Mayor Bellwether make a good front page headline.

He tried not to read the article, after he saw her face for the first time in months (no, in _years_ ) glaring out at him from the centerpiece photo. He tried not to think about her afterwards, whenever he wasn’t busying himself and his mind had time to wander about, pick out all of the mistakes he’d ever made, and stick them right back up there at the forefront of his consciousness. He tried to push back down the one thought that had been _boiling_ within him when he’d first found out it was her behind everything, the one he’d needed weeks of meditation and exercise and any pointless distraction he could think to do in order to let go of.

But he had to know. He had to know if it was his fault.

* * *

Stepping into the visiting room, Lionheart can’t help but think of a film he’d watched years and years ago called _Silence of the Lambs_ , and almost has to stifle a laugh. Of course, he makes no mention of the coincidence to the lamb sitting at one end of the table in the center of the otherwise empty, gray room. There was a time and a place, and besides, he knows how much she hates his jokes.

_I never thought you hated them before. I always believed you when you chuckled or rolled your eyes at me. It made me feel better, hearing you laugh–_

“Leodore.”

Hearing his name from her lips makes him shiver. He hides this fact by lurching forward and stepping towards the table.

“Dawn.” He sits across from her, folds his paws in front of him, and leans forward. “It’s good to see you.”

“Really?” she asks, face clear of any telling emotions. Her arms are stretched out in front of her, the chain of her cuffs threaded through a metal ring attached to the table. The look she gives him is empty and apathetic, but her eyes still bore into him the way they always do, and he has to look away. He glances at the guards standing still as statues at the doors on opposite sides of the room and frowns when he sees they’re keeping their eyes focused in his direction.

Dawn smirks and says, “They aren’t going to leave us alone, if that’s what you’re hoping for. Whatever it is you want to say, you’ll have to be okay with them hearing it, too.” She leans forward a little and adds, “Unless you didn’t come here to _talk_ …”

Her sense of humor disgusts him just enough to keep him from looking flustered. “You don’t really think I’d come here after all this time just for _that_.”

“There weren’t many reasons I could think of at all, actually.”

“Yet you still let me visit.”

“Mm.” Looking him up and down, she changes the subject: “You look tired, Leodore.”

“I don’t feel tired. I haven’t felt tired since I left office.”

“Since you _left_?” She snorts. “Is _that_ what you’re calling it?”

Now it’s his turn to smirk. “You’re right. I misspoke. What I meant to say was, ‘I haven’t felt tired since I was cleared of the charges that you had me framed for.’”

Dawn leans back in her seat. “No one told you to kidnap all of those predators and keep them locked up like that.”

“I was keeping the city _safe_.”

“Of course you were. You were doing it for the greater good. What was it you said in that interview? A ‘doing the wrong thing for the right reason’ kind of deal?”

“ _Listen–_ ”

Out of the corner of his eye, the guards flinch. Looking down at himself, he finds he’s leaned forward so that he’s almost towering over Dawn, making her seem even smaller than she already is to him.

_Just like before. How do you already have me riled up, why do you always do this to me, you–_

But he stops himself, breathes, and settles back in his seat. Paws fold together once more, and he smiles at the all-too-satisfied ewe.

“I’ve put that behind me.”

“I don’t think you have,” she deadpans, returned now to her indifferent stare.

They sit in silence for a second, one that Leodore uses to take a closer look at her. She has new glasses, still just as goofily large as the last pair he’d seen her wearing, and her eyes are still the way he remembers them, huge and always in focus. Her wool has been trimmed, and her hooves are worn down by whatever sort of busy work the prison keeps her occupied with here. Her face is no more hardened than it was the day she was sentenced, but there’s wear and tear evident in the small cuts, the dry lips, the slight grayness pervading it that wasn’t there before. This place has _weathered_ her.

He is yanked back to reality when she asks, “Why are you here?”

“I heard you’re getting out in a few months.”

“But why are you here?”

He hesitates. “I realize… that you might want to leave Zootopia once you’re out of this place. I felt that we should see each other again, before you go.”

Dawn’s face twists in genuine confusion. “What? Why?”

“There’s… something I need to know. Something that I’ve been wondering for a while.” He looks down at the threaded chain. “Were… Were you _happy_ with me, Dawn?”

She doesn’t answer. Glancing back up, he sees her mouth is slightly ajar, though her eyes are still just as focused on him as before. He doesn’t look away from her this time.

Underneath the table, his claws dig into the palms of his paws.

_Why can’t you say it please just answer me Dawn _–__

“ _HAHAHA!_ ”

Leodore jolts back in his seat as Dawn lurches forward, barking laughter. She tries to wrap her arms around her stomach, but the cuffs won’t let her reach that far. The position this leaves her in reminds Leodore of a witch bent over her cauldron; Dawn’s cackling is just as incessant.

“ _Careful._ ” One of the guards, a wolf on Dawn’s side of the room, has her paw on something boxy and worrisome in one of her belt holsters. She’s eyeing Dawn suspiciously, and the moment she notices Leodore’s looking at her, he turns back to Dawn.

“Oh my _god_ , Jeannie!” The sheep twists around to smile at the wolf. “Did you see his _face_ just now? Did you hear what he said?”

“Keep it _quiet_ , inmate.”

Dawn’s eyes flicker to the holster, and her grin fades. Still chuckling softly, she turns back to Leodore. The look on his face (he’s pretty sure it’s somewhere between shock and confusion) makes her sneer at him again.

“I can’t believe I thought…” She trails off, shaking her head at him. Her arms are still awkwardly held in place by her cuffs. Relaxing them on the table, she continues, “Of course you would make this about you. Of course.”

“I’m not trying to-”

“You never were, Leodore. That’s just who you are.”

“ _Look._ I’m not here to ask your opinion of me. I don’t care about that.”

“Are you sure?”

“What I’m here for… is to ask you whether or not I was… _cruel_ to you.”

The higher Dawn’s eyebrow rises, the more pressure he can feel at the back of his neck. He scratches at it, and adds, in a mutter, “ _How_ cruel I was to you.”

She tilts her head, trying to look him in the eye again. “You think it’s because of you that I started turning predators savage.”

“I never said-”

“Is that why you’re here, Leodore? You want me to tell you the truth?”

He looks up, slowly. His paw massages the scratched neck spot. He nods.

Dawn looks him up and down once more. The ghost of a smile graces her face, and she asks, “What do _you_ think?”

Leodore answers slow: “I– I’m not sure. I know… I know I hurt you. I’ve been looking back on how I acted once I came into office.”

“Oh? That’s new. Never thought you would be the reflective type.”

“Dawn, I’m sorry.”

Something in her head fires off wrong.

“You–” But it doesn’t process. Dumbly, she repeats, “’Sorry?’”

“Yes. I treated you like dirt. I let the stress of the job get to me, and I took it out on you. And I’m sorry.”

It takes her a moment to reply: “…Why?”

He looks up from the table. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you sorry? Why would you want to apologize to me? I got you arrested. I ended your political career!” She leans forward more and more with each sentence, standing on her chair to get closer to him. “I drove predators mad so they’d attack prey and convince the population that they couldn’t be trusted as a group! _I tried to destroy Zootopia!_ ”

“ _In your seat, inmate, not on it._ ”

Her paw is not on the holster this time, but Jeannie the guard’s words carry just as much authority as they did when she made the threat before. Dawn glances back at her before settling down. She tries to wrap her arms around herself, gets stopped by her cuffs, and settles on rubbing her arm with a hoof while glaring at the floor.

“Why would you ever regret doing those things, after what I’ve done?” she mumbles. “I’m a monster. Everyone knows that. _I_ know that.” She pauses. “Even when I’m locked up in here with all the other scum of the city, I know it’s true.”

Keeping her eyes glued to the floor, she reaches and rubs a spot under her collarbone, wincing. The chain of the cuffs jingles as her hoof moves back and forth. It pulls and parts her wool as it rubs, and for a fraction of a second, Leodore can see purple splotches on her skin.

He waits until she looks back up at him to answer, in a gentle tone: “If I’m the one who made you this way, I’m just as responsible for what happened as you are.”

“Would you mind telling that to the police?”

“Dawn.”

He reaches out and covers her hoof with his paw. Her eyes flicker worriedly between him and their joined limbs, but she doesn’t pull back her arm.

“If it’s my fault, then I’m sorry, regardless of whether or not you think you deserve it. I cared more about keeping up appearances than I did about working with you. You were an outstanding assistant, and… I liked you. I liked having you around, even before we made it into office. And maybe then… Maybe then I only wanted someone to use as a punching bag, but… I could have been better to you. I _should_  have been better to you. You were important to me.”

The look on her face is something akin to horror, or perhaps just shock. Slowly, he leans back in his seat, refolding his paws once more, trying to ignore her gaping jaw.

“And as for ending my political career, well… There hasn’t been a day since I was released from custody that I haven’t felt happy to be alive. I never felt that way in office, even when I was forcing you to do all of my work for me.” He chuckles. “In a way, I should be thanking you.”

Her mouth shuts a little more, and her eyes, still so wide, stare at him now not with horror, but with sorrow. Disappointment.

Emptiness.

_She’s going to laugh at me again, she can’t laugh at me again, I have to–_

“You aren’t the reason I did it, Leodore.”

Her voice is emotionless and steady as it had been when he’d first come in. Something gray has glazed over her eyes. Her head tilts slightly, her arms lay flat on the table.

“I’ve been hurt by predators all my life. Yours was just another name on the list.”

Now there’s an emotion Leodore can place, exuding from her gaze and her stature and her empty, deadpan words. It’s one he’s never seen in her before: defeat.

“I still meant what I said, Dawn. I really-”

“Is that all?”

“What?”

“Is that all you needed to know? That’s why you came here?”

“I– Yes, but-”

“Then we’re done.” Ignoring his protests, she turns around and says to her guard, “I’d like to go back to my cell now, Jeannie.”

“Dawn, wait-”

“You weren’t special, Leodore. I know how much it must hurt to hear that, but…” She shrugs, holding out her hooves for Jeannie to uncuff her. “You wanted to know.”

“I need you to understand-”

“Yes, Leodore, I know you’re sorry. You made that _very_ clear. I’m glad we can put all of this behind us now.” She clambers down from her seat and lets Jeannie lead her to her exit.

“ _Dawn!_ ”

She stops in the doorway, sighs, and turns to look back at him. Standing now, he looks at her with what she reads as pity. It makes her want to gag.

“Look me up, if you need a place to stay. Once you’re out.”

For a second, her expression changes, face twisting into some emotion that he can’t place. Then she sucks back into herself, gives him a bored, dead look, and turns away from him.

“Good _bye_ , Leodore!”

Jeannie shuts the door behind them, and he’s alone again.

The guard from his side, a pig whose hat looks too small to be on his head, leads him out and offers his condolences as Leodore heads for the exit.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, bud. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want them to.” He chuckles. “Besides, knowing _her_ , things’d get real ugly real fast. Just can’t trust that sheep.”

Leodore stops at the exit and turns back to the smiling pig. He looks the guard up and down, wondering what on earth would compel him to say something like that, and decides that, what the hell, he’s never coming back here anyway:

“Wipe that fucking smirk off your face, Porky.”

And damn it, Porky does just that.

* * *

Later, Dawn sits on her bunk and ignores the jeering from outside her cell. It’s been going on long enough now that she can do it on cue: instant white noise.

_Dawn, I’m sorry._

On the floor of the cell, a wide, jagged crack extends from her bunk to the opposite wall. It bothers her, has always bothered her, with how unnatural it looks, like a mammal-made fault line in the center of her own personal prison. Whenever she’s had to cross it, she makes a point never to step on it. Now she swings her leg back and forth and traces a hoof across it over and over again. The clicking, dragging sound it makes echoes faintly against the walls of the cell. More white noise.

_You were important to me._

A chill runs through her, and Dawn wraps her arms around herself, shivering. Squeezing herself, she feels the purples, browns, and blacks that her body’s been patched with over the course of her stay here go off. Wincing, she lays down, hissing through her teeth as the bruises on her back chime in again, protesting even the (not really) soft padding of her bunk’s mattress.

Keeping as still as possible so as to let the pain die down, she stares up at the ceiling of her cell. It’s a single, which she’s very proud to have gotten after enduring quite a bit from her fifth and final cellmate, a rhino who’d been arrested for robbing a liquor store. She’d explained to Dawn why she needed the money their first day together: her mother had been hospitalized after being attacked by a savage polar bear, and her job selling fruit wasn’t enough to pay off the hospital bills.

Dawn’s hoof drifts to a certain spot under her collarbone, and she thinks of how lucky she is to be alone in here.

_In a way, I should be thanking you._

“Fuck you,” she mutters, and suddenly her chest is heaving and she can’t stop it. “Bastard,” she whispers, shuddering and twisting her face to try and keep her eyes from welling up. She feels like she might curl up into a ball and collapse, and for a minute she tries to, gripping her knees and pressing them _hard_  against her chest, ignoring the aches all over and the echoes of her shuddering breaths and the laughter coming from outside the cell (white noise white noise _white noise_ ).

After a minute, an hour, an eternity, she slows. Stops. Starts to breathe again, quietly, letting the pain subside. Uncurling, she lays on her side and stares at the wall an inch from her face. Her glasses are lopsided. Slipping them off, she folds and sets them on the edge of the bunk without looking away from the wall. She swipes at her face and settles against her pillow, forcing herself to sleep.

_Look me up, if you need a place to stay._

“I don’t need you,” she murmurs into the pillow, but her last thought before she drifts off is of her phone, sitting in a bin somewhere waiting her for to come and collect it, and whether or not his number is still in her contacts list.

(It is.)

**Author's Note:**

> Original Post: http://theunrealhorseman.tumblr.com/post/144960441693/chains


End file.
